Glamorous - A Grace Bishop Novel - Chapter 41
© Denise Bossarte
As Grace drove up to the lake
house, the motion sensor on the light pole in the driveway activated, adding
its glow to the early evening sunlight. She saw no other vehicles in the area.
But it didn’t mean the Glamour hadn’t parked at
another location near the lake and walked in from there. He could already be
here waiting for her, and based on his personality she would lay odds he was
down at the dock already.
“I want you all to stay
here in the car until I’ve checked things out. I’ll tell you once it’s ok to
manifest and come down to the dock,” Grace instructed them.
They all agreed to wait to manifest until Grace saw the time was
right. No one wanted to use the crystals too early and miss the chance to
confront the Glamour.
“Sure thing, Gracie. We’ll
be waiting here until you give us the ok,” Danny assured her.
Grace got out of the car, searching the surrounding woods for
signs of the Glamour. She adjusted the holster inside her jeans on her right
side, making sure that the Glock was loose and ready to draw. She was carrying
it in a concealed fashion as she didn’t want to provoke the Glamour before she
got her questions answered.
Grace had replaced the barrel of the pistol with a backup before
coming to the lake house. When she first started as a rookie cop, one of Billy’s
uncles had recommended she pick up a couple of extra barrels at a gun show. He
had told her it was a precaution, but not one ever discussed in public. It had
made Grace uneasy to follow his advice, but now she was happy she had. It would
make things simple to avoid connecting her with what happened here tonight; she
wouldn’t have to find a way to get rid of her pistol, only the barrel.
Grace eased forward while
searching the surrounding area, making her way down the railroad ties used to
make a walking path to the boat dock. The sun would set in an hour and the lake
water was already starting to take on a colorful warm glow. With night
approaching, the woods were darkening, and the dock was partly in shadow.
As she reached the edge of
the ramp leading to the covered boat house, a second motion sensor activated. A
sulfurous yellow light bathed the ramp and the house, casting her shadow off to
the side and onto the lake. Grace was expecting the light to kick on. But what
she wasn’t ready for was the figure who stepped out
of the dock house shadows and into the light.
It was the Glamour, and he
had been waiting in the darkened boat house for her to arrive. He had stood
there immobile long enough for the motion sensitive light to turn back off. The
Glamour had not ambushed her when she walked out to the boat house, not stepped
in behind her to cut off her retreat. The fact he left her with a potential
escape route showed he thought he was in control of the situation. Something
she should look to manipulate.
“Well, well. Miss Bishop. I am finally getting to meet the
infamous Aperto Rotto that has everyone talking.”
“I’m not the only Paranorm that has everyone talking,” Grace
retorted, trying to see his eyes to find out which personality she was dealing
with right then.
The light from the lamp was casting shadows across his face. She
wasn’t sure what color his eyes were under the shadows. She either needed to be
closer to him or wait until he moved and the shadows shifted. She decided
waiting was the better choice.
“Ah, yes,” he said, taking her comment as a compliment. “I
gained a bit of notoriety these past few weeks with all the attention you and
your friends have been giving me.”
Notoriety was one
way to put it, if you were a whacked out sicko, she thought. But not the point Grace was making.
“Who are you?” Grace
asked him, impatience winning out over prudence.
“Who am I?” he responded, looking pleased at the question.
“Isn’t that the question we are all searching to answer, Miss Bishop, ‘Who am
I?’ Do you know who you are?”
Grace wasn’t surprised she didn’t get a direct response from the man. She
was starting to guess which personality she was talking with already. She came
here to get answers to her questions, and the Glamour wanted to play another
game with her instead. She decided to go along to find out where this would
take them.
“I am
starting to find out who I am, what I am capable of myself,” Grace admitted.
“Such a shock, I am sure. Becoming an Aperto Rotto. Finding out
the world is not as you thought it was, eh?”
“You could say that. But what I was asking is which one are you,
which personality?”
“Clever girl,” the Glamour said, venom leaking into his voice as
the jovial tone drained away.
“Too, too clever,” he repeated almost to himself.
A cold finger ran down Grace’s spine at his response. Ok, here
was the not- too-stable personality she had anticipated talking with tonight.
“And how did you figure it out, hmm? No one ever discovered me.
Robyn, sweet, gentle, accommodating Robyn is the one they all see. The one they
all interact with daily. They never know I am behind the scenes directing him,
misleading them, and manipulating them.”
Grace decided not to offer a response to the rhetorical
question. Hoping the Glamour would continue to talk about himself, which he
did.
“But you, little Aperto Rotto. You come along and figure out I
exist, with minimal help from the other Paranorms.”
He paced back and forth within the few feet available on the
ramp and Grace finally confirmed his eyes were brown. Not that she had
reservations on who she was talking with. But it might help if they started
bouncing between the personalities if she tracked by eye color.
All at once the Glamour stopped his pacing, turning to smile
with pleasure at her.
“Of course. You are a psychometrist! And when I left the
warehouse in such a hurry, I abandoned my tools. You read one of the knives,
didn’t you?”
Grace’s stomach rolled as she listened to the Glamour describe
the knives he used to torture the girls as his ‘tools.’
“Yes. I read a knife to learn about you and Robyn. But you still
haven’t answered my question. You’re not Robyn. Who are you?”
The Glamour paused and looked at her with head cocked, listening
to something she didn’t hear, the smile never leaving his face.
“I am Robyn’s protector. The one who kept him functional and
sane all this time.”
Grace couldn’t believe what the Glamour was saying. He was the
sane one where Robyn wasn’t? What an upside down world the Glamour created for
himself.
The Glamour gave her a shrewd look, the smile melting into a
scowl.
“You aren’t convinced, Miss Bishop? But I am sure you were
willing to accept everything Eli and The Family told you. What the other
Paranorms told you about someone with Glamour abilities.
Haven’t you asked yourself how Robyn has the Glamour abilities,
but stayed sane when all his predecessors did not? You assigned me all the
traits associated with a Glamour Paranorm. But shouldn’t those be traits Robyn
shows rather than me? My ability is Preservation, is it not, not Glamour?”
Grace realized he was right. Robyn appeared benign in the
reading. But shouldn’t the personality with the Glamour ability be the one
acting as this other personality was? It was like the two abilities and the
consequences of the two abilities flipped between the personalities. She was
feeling uneasy with how she had been defining them; how she thought she
understood them.
“I see from your expression I created a quandary for you. Yes, a
delightful quandary, is it not? But shall I let you in on a secret?” he said,
moving a few steps up the ramp toward her, as if to create a more intimate
conversation.
Grace fought the instinct to back away as he moved close. Stood
her ground as if his movement did not faze her. Again, Grace realized it was
best not to respond. Instead, she waited for the Glamour to continue his story.
“Robyn was becoming like all the other Glamours. But faster
because of what The Family was doing to him. They pushed him too far;
manipulating him, torturing him, destroying his family. In the end, he cracked.
But when he did, I was born. I was the one who ‘became.’
The sweet boy isn’t even aware I exist. But I was the one who
took on all the ‘consequences’ of being a Glamour from what his mind did to
preserve his sanity and his life. Wasn’t it fitting in becoming his
preserver, I become a preserver in ability as well?”
Grace had the explanation she had been hoping to hear. Her
reading was right after all. She was back on solid ground with understanding
the personalities.
“How is it Robyn is the only one anyone knows about? How can
they not know about you?” she asked.
The Glamour laughed, more
amused than the question warranted. With the laughter, the scowl disappeared
and a smile of victory spread across his face.
“How can someone of my undeniable charisma, strength of
personality, and talents remain unknown all this time? Isn’t the answer
obvious, Miss Bishop? It is because I wanted it that way.”
Grace was rocked by what the Glamour revealed. It wasn’t by
chance that Robyn was functioning this well for this long. Not by chance no one
discovered the monster living inside of him.
“You wanted it that way?” she was able to ask, overcoming her
shock.
“Yes. In splitting himself in two, Robyn somehow maintained his
sanity as well as mine. Robyn lives in the Paranorm world, happy to do as The
Family bids him. But I am there always: seeing through his eyes, hearing
through his ears. He never knows I am there. That I am the one guiding him.”
“Guiding him how?” Grace was quick to interject before the Glamour
changed directions.
“But of course, Miss Bishop, I have been guiding Robyn since ‘I
became.’ Why do you think I wanted to stay unknown? Because I am planning on
making sure The Family pays for what they did to us. Pays for what they did to
our family. It took years of work, years of moving the pieces one by one with
no one being wiser. Not even Robyn.”
Grace was getting creeped out by what the Glamour was sharing
with her. What she was realizing might be a serious threat to The Family.
“If you wanted to hide all these years, then why the
kidnappings? Why the tortures and murders? Didn’t it put you at risk of
discovery of ruining all your years of planning?”
The Glamour stood unmoving in response to her question and her
heart stalled at the thought she asked too much. She needed him to keep
talking. Now more than ever, if he would reveal what he was planning.
Luckily, it she had done the right thing in asking.
Finally the Glamour came back to the present.
Shrugging, he said “Everyone needs a hobby, Miss Bishop, a way
to let off steam. This is my particular enjoyment. It was easy enough for me to
influence Robyn into believing he was simply keeping his abilities honed by
enticing the girls to come to him.
They were like children’s toys to him, delightful things for him
to glamour and then send along their way. He never got to see what happened to
them afterward. Never realized I was the one picking out the toys, and they
were my playthings, not his.”
Grace made her decision.
“Danny, get the girls
manifested. It’s time to bring them into the conversation. It’ll help shake the
Glamour up if they come confront him now.”
“We’ll all be manifest in
a few minutes. Keep him talking,” Danny replied, urging the girls to use
the crystals while manifesting himself.
“Playthings?” she challenged the Glamour, disgusted by what she
heard. “Is that how you saw the girls? All the torturing was about ‘playing?’”
“It was about challenging my abilities, giving myself license
for artistic expression. I was creating something of my own from my own
powers.”
“The girls meant nothing to you at all? They were only a means
to an end?”
The Glamour brushed aside her question with an indifferent hand.
“These Norms mean nothing to us. Are worth nothing to us beyond
what we want of them. You are a Paranorm, Miss Bishop. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“No, I do NOT agree!”
Hearing the sounds of footsteps on the trail behind her Grace
added, “And the girls you ‘played with’ do not agree with you either!”
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